The Five: Book summary and reviews of The Five by Hallie Rubenhold

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Cathryn Conroy

An Important and Fascinating Fact-Filled Entry into the Myths of Jack the Ripper and His Victims
Jack the Ripper, a brutal, evil, psychotic murderer who stalked the foggy nighttime streets of London's East End slums in 1888 is the stuff of legend. He was never caught and still hasn't been identified more than 135 years later. And the women he killed? Oh, they were just prostitutes, most would say. That too, is a myth.

Who were these unfortunate women? There were at least five, possibly more. The five "canonical" murders ("canonical" meaning recognized or authoritative in this case) took place in September and November 1888, and this prodigiously researched book by Hallie Rubenhold does what history has ignored until now: Elucidates these women's stories as daughters, wives, and mothers and gives them names and faces and lives.

The introduction, which is titled "A Tale of Two Cities," explains what life was like in London in 1887 when Queen Victoria celebrated her Golden Jubilee—50 years wearing the crown—and what life was like in the underbelly of the city, namely in the notorious slums of the East End. It is in the introduction that author Hallie Rubenhold describes the grisly murders of the women, all of whom were killed in their sleep. And that is all we hear about the ghoulish killings. The rest of the book focuses on the lives and loves, the joys and sufferings of the five women.

Their names are Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elisabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly.

Find out fascinating facts:
• Only one of the women was a prostitute (Mary Jane Kelly, who was murdered in November, while all the others were murdered in September), but all of them were alcoholics and all either had failed marriages or no marriage. All were on their own without a husband, a dangerous and precarious hardship in this age. There is no hard evidence that the first four of them were prostitutes; the police made that assumption when their bodies were found in a dark yard or street. Find out what it was like to live their lives as single women without male protection.

• Because the police were so convinced the women were prostitutes, the entire investigation was slanted that way and absolutely tainted. Worse, they ignored the one thing the five homicides did have in common!

• Find out how the focus of the murder investigations became a moral inquiry to the women's lives.

• Learn about the horrific reality of what it meant to live in the East End, especially Whitechapel, the most notorious and sordid of the London slums and where all the Jack the Ripper murders occurred. It was here that an entire family might inhabit one eight-foot by eight-foot room that was infested with vermin along with broken windows and damp walls. Outside there were stagnant pools of disease-breeding water, slicks of sewage, and rubbish-filled roads.

• Find out what it was like to be a woman, especially an unmarried woman, at a time when women had no voice, few rights, and just by being poor they would be labeled lazy and degenerate—or worse. This is how history has viewed these five murder victims, which is almost as great a crime as that committed by Jack the Ripper.

Bonus: Be sure to read the final chapter titled "Just Prostitutes" for the author's impassioned and eloquent opinions as to why the victims were labeled as prostitutes and how the story of Jack the Ripper is a narrative of a killer's deep and abiding hatred of women.

My heart broke for these five women and the tragedies that led them to Whitechapel with lives so precarious that they had no idea where they would eat next or sleep that night. This is an important and fascinating fact-filled entry into the myths of Jack the Ripper and his unfortunate victims.